Final Day

Tonight was the closing ceremonies. The races and triple jump went great until the men's 4x400 when GBR elbowed Doc Patton at the final exchange and knocked him down. Neither team finished and Doc had a sling on this arm that night. I'm not sure how badly he was hurt.

The closing was fun. The volunteers here have been so good and helpful. They all wanted photos and autographs (mostly on shirts).

The athlete I'm getting a photo with is from Namibia. He is an 800 runner. We met after we both finished workouts at the practice track. He asked if I would trade a US shirt for Namibia. I was happy too since Frank Fredericks (my teammate from BYU and 4 time Olympic Silver Medalist who I see at every competition like this) is from Namibia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUFKjr4dRLQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOZhq6B1FmA

31 August

Today was an off day for the meet (other than the 20k race walk). I went to the Nike hospitality for lunch. The bread pudding was so good!

I got a good photo with Bernard Lagat. Since Coach Eyestone often does comentary for NBC, I thought this photo would be fun with the microphone.

After lunch, we went to an ancient medicine museum. When we walked into one room, some people got really excited. They wanted to film some tourists enjoying the center so I got dressed up in a kings robe and cut some medicinal herbs. I don't know who the tv people were, but they had a good time.

Last night I sa

w this guy from Florida cheering on the USA.

The other photo is just funny since it has a 45.7cm diameter pizza.

Finally, here's a photo of me working away filming the shot put.

30 August

Today was crazy with the men's 1500. Leo made it to the semis, but had to run a very tough last lap to make it. Round 1 had all three heats with the top 6-9 within a second of each other. He qualified for the next round by time. I also thought you might enjoy the British and German fans. Sie sind verruckt!

It was fun to see Andrew Wheating running next to Ribeiro Pinto de Carvalho (who is about 2 feet shorter than Andrew).

I'm back off to the track now for Jill's award's ceremony.

29 August

Oscar's fan club was fun to watch. They were all Korean's, but were really excited to have him there. Here is a link to the video I shot of them cheering for him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3KjLfM5Hsk

Today is a bit lighter on filming for me. I've had no time to do much writing or posting of photos until this morning. I hope to have a highlight video of the opening ceremonies added to this later on. I have to leave for the track now though and will work on it there in between events.

The decathlon was great. Trey won by a lot and Ashton needed to win by about 9 seconds over a Cuban in the 1500 and did it by 9 (he got the silver by 4 points). It's about 4 points per second in the 1500.

All of our women's 1500m runners made it through the first round.

I'll work on the highlight video another time. This time I got a tour of the athlete's village ready.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pgWiy0or6A

Downtown and More

Here is a link to the video of the day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ6n3zChL3g

We had a great time heading downtown today. We did the subway just like we were experts at it (other than getting through the gate). Some of us struggled with using our cards to open the gates at the right time.

We rode bikes from the village to the subway (the long way thanks to our navigator). We should have listened to Jill.

There wasn't a whole lot to do there, but we had a good time. A Korean guy helped us get around and stayed with us for a while. He said he learned English and French from his smartphone.

Dinner was good, but I was worried after seeing the first two options (octopus then snails).

After we got back, I went for a run. The US team did a talent show. There are some good singers on the team. Jon Drummond did some great impersonations of people on the staff.

On the way back to my room, I heard a choir, so I went to see them. As I went out there, I saw Usain Bolt walking along. He had a group with him including a camera man, light and sound man and other people. It was pretty funny to see people so interested in him to follow him like that around the village. There is a church outside the village that put on the choir and gave us a few gifts. They were really good.

By the way, we also did some filming of athletes today. Back in the medical room I saw some athletes watching their practice video on laptops and iPads. So, it's good to know it's working and being used.

Wii

Had a fun day today. Started with a good workout on the track. It was cool and raining just a little bit. The French toast was so good at breakfast. I helped a little at the practice track with filming, then played the Wii with Leo Manzano. He is one of the 1500m runners. We've had fun hanging out and got to run together a little on his easy days. We played Summer Athletics and raced a few 200m dashes. He beat me in that, but I was way better at Mario Kart!

There are two race walkers here that have been great to chat with. Trevor is 18 and is the only male US walker here. He's been doing race walking for years and is really good. Maria is also pretty young and is the only female US walker here. So, the future looks bright for US race walking. Whenever I actually meet the race walkers, I learn to appreciate the event more although I'm still not interested in trying it myself.

We're in the village now! It is amazing. There are bikes all over the place to ride from one place to another. We just leave them and grad another one to get back.

The apartments buildings are brand new and will be for sale when the event is over.

The practice track is really nice. There is also a 3-lane 200m track. The food is great and we can get it almost any time of day. Breakfast is advertised as 5am to 11am. Lunch is from 11am to 5pm. Dinner is from 5pm to 2am. Hopefully, I can make it through the 3 hours from 2-5am without getting too hungry.

I'll take some video of the village today to show you what it is like.

The one big problem here is that everything is technologically advanced. I went to do laundry yesterday. The washers are brand new and only have Korean writing on them. They are also very advanced, so there are buttons all over them with digital displays that make no sense unless you read Korean (I haven't figured that out yet). Fortunately, there were two Korean ladies that didn't speak English, but helped me get the washer going. They don't have dryers here so I hung everything around my room. Even getting into our room took some effort due to the high-tech door lock. We had to push a lot of buttons in the correct order. I'm pretty good at that now, but people are still getting locked out of the building. We have to push ##7401 to get in and if you mess up it's hard to reset. Yesterday, I was trying to get in with someone and we were not succeeding. After pushing a few random buttons, a lady came over a speaker and said something in Korean, then the door popped open. We still don't know the Korean voice was, but we think we translated what she said as "Stupid Americans!".

I had a great long run yesterday that gave me some good confidence in my preparation. I feel good today, so the recovery from the run is going well. I think I'll be ready for a good run at St George this year.